Summer Time and Livin'

I'm into the summer now. Things generally moves slower; I enjoy outside more, puttering around the house and garden.

Garden is a less noble word here. I basically got energetic for a short time and stuck a bunch of plants into the ground. From that point on they were on their own. I'm also doing a little bit of office and home reorganization, which turned into a nightmare. Take a note from me: never ever clean out a closet or file cabinets. Both lead to quite a few things standing out in the middle-of-the-hallway, paperwork stacked all over, and generally more work. I'd much rather be writing a story.

But I am getting lined up to create more stories, and am taking the short bit of time to reorganize.

I just read a blog this morning that I've been wanting to read for some time. In the blog the writer speaks about "elevator statements." This is what we call a "pitch." It is necessary to give the initial story layout to an agent or an editor. Sometimes this just comes down to about three sentences. This is one of the most difficult tasks I have as a writer, because as my sister says, "Lois loves to talk." It is very difficult to explain the layered stories that I write in short terms. We also have what is called "high concept." And that would be expressed something like this, "my story can best be described as Godzilla meets Buffy." More and more we rely on films as the basis for expressing our pitches or high concepts.

I'm also exploring some new software. That would be PageFour, an outliner, which is becoming very handy for the several story ideas that I am working on now. I am also testing some sound software, freebies, to use at my website to give sidebars about my stories. Now all of this takes time and energy. But I like to explore.

I was surprised to read that M. J. Rose, the head blogger of us all, to suggest that unless you have a lot of time, have coupled with several other authors in a group blog, or major stars, that perhaps blogging wasn't for everyone. It does take a lot of time, and trailers, UTube, MySpace, and FaceBook, etc. are all taking time in addition to keeping up our websites. I do think websites are important because they offer a homeplace for a lot of material, especially when you have several books as I do.

A reader just recently wrote me how much she enjoyed my books, a written hug for when I said I was sad at leaving my psychic sisters trilogy. I'm not really leaving it, because once after being written, the manuscript passes through many phases, and the author sees it many times. So I'll be with my Aisling triplets for quite some time, either working back and forth in the production of the novels, or doing promotional work.

But thank you, reader. I really appreciated the hug.